Shadowed Souls Part 2
by The Cat's Whiskers
Summary: ext in The Blood Will Tell Series. In every generation there is the Chosen One. Until Buffy Summers turned the Slayers into a franchise. And did we really expect Evil to simply shrug its shoulders and say, 'Oh well, it was nice while it lasted'
1. Chapter 1

_**Disclaimer: **__Please see Part 1, Chapter 1 _

**SHADOWED SOULS Part 2**

**Chapter 1**

"Would you like another soda?"

Dawn's head snapped up so fast she nearly pulled a muscle at the quiet, familiar voice behind her. Swivelling around on the bar stool, she looked straight into a pair of twinkling, cornflower-blue eyes:"Connor!"

"Hi." Connor slid on the empty bar stool next to her, as most people in here were dancing to the band, surprisingly good for a teenage hangout, if a little too urban gothic for Connor's personal taste.

Aware she was rivalling the Cheshire Cat with her grin, Dawn mentally strove for a cooler façade - and found it as the uncomfortable thought occurred that if Connor _had_ followed her up here, then she now had her _second_ consecutive stalker 'boyfriend'. The wattage in her return smile dimmed slightly as her twice-singed romantic yearnings battled her happy hormones. "Hi, yourself. Are you on vacation?"

"No I just started here this semester. I'm a freshman over at Morton Hall."

"You're going to college here?" Dawn again battled a simultaneous urge to jump up and cheer but also to make sure she could reach the pepper spray in her purse.

"Yeah," Connor looked her right in the eyes, his expression telling her exactly who was responsible for his decision to switch to UC Sunnydale. "About that soda?"

"Uh, yeah, thanks." Despite the intensity of Connor's look, something inside her unclenched, at least a little. Neither RJ-turned-out-to-be-a-vampire nor Stefan-turned-out-to-be-a-demon-hitman, had ever held her gaze for longer than a second before their eyes slid away. Connor was making no excuses about his reason for being here but neither was he giving off any really creepy signals; his eye-contact was direct but not over-long into discomforting psycho-staring.

"So what's this place like?" Connor asked as he gave the order to the barman.

"It's okay..." Dawn conceded.

"...but it's not The Bronze."

"How do you know about The Bronze?" Dawn spoke more sharply than she intended; her own unfortunate experience with her first two boyfriends and Fallon Mady's tragic death had made everyone jittery, looking for ulterior motives and double-meanings in everything said.

Connor rolled his eyes in that inimitable way only people aged thirteen to nineteen an manage to pull off. "It's all I've heard since I've been here. Everyone makes it sound like The Bronze was a cross between Woodstock and Live Aid."

Dawn grinned. "A lot of stuff went down at The Bronze. Defining moments, you know?"

Connor raised an eyebrow sceptically, listening attentively as Dawn began to regale him with some obviously-intended 'I'll show you buster' outrageous tales of The Bronze, and making sure his face betrayed only keen interest. In fact he did know, because he had made it his business to find out. There was very little you couldn't find on the Internet these days or in books - if you knew what sites to surf and what books to look in.

Bad Tan's retro-attempt to stake 'Spike' rather than shoot him like any sane 21st Century scumbag – modern criminals not being known for either their in-depth knowledge or fandom of pre-firearm murder methods - led one to a certain inescapable conclusion; a conclusion reinforced when Connor did a little digging on Wolfram & Hart after seeing Spike and Dawn enter the powerful law firm's building, at which point he discovered that the entire place had been constructed from roof to basement with something called necrotempered glass. Necrotempered glass, according to mystically oriented websites and literature, was designed solely to enable demonic entities to whom sunlight was fatal to be able to move about in daylight. A website called _Demons, Demons, Demons_ had listed the small number of sunlight-intolerant species 'common to this dimension' (which was a brain-hurting thought for another day), and top of the list was 'vampire', natch.

To say that the Demons, Demons, Demons website had been a revelation was - well, it was like Connor's entire belief system being hit head-on by a Mack truck. If even less than ten percent of what the website stated as fact was actually true, everything Connor thought he knew about 'reality' was only good to be shredded into confetti and flushed down the toilet.

The website had many hits a day, the vast majority of visitors, Connor realised, not believing a single word of it; already brighter than most, Connor had quickly been able to recognise what in Politically Correct terms would be called 'the practitioners'. They disguised their web postings and emails with the jargon of the ordinary visitors, but Connor had quickly clocked the subtle phrasings, word structure and maturity of writing that showed those ones knew what they were doing, using the website's garish, 1950s B-Movie design to disguise that it was real, like a woman who disguised a priceless diamond by making it 'just one amongst many' on a necklace of obviously worthless glass beads.

Then he had found the Watcher Diaries website; the connection between Rupert Giles's 'Buffy Summers' and Dawn had been obvious, as, to Connor, had been the sections where Giles must have edited and censored text. Much of what Connor guessed to be the really sensational stuff had, understandably, been expurgated from the online version of the Diaries that dealt with a still-living Slayer.

After that, it was a piece of cake to get the low down on Sunnydale. When the original Spanish settlers came, they named the place 'vale of the sun', Sunnydale, which was still its official name, but despite the derision of the Alcalde and other local prominent citizens, the ordinary Spaniards had soon begun using the indigenous Chumash Indian description of the area as a spirit gateway to evil, or _Boca del Inferno_: Hell Mouth. The ancestors of the current Sunnydale population had arrived a few years later, perpetrating against the Spanish the same genocide they had previously used to exterminate the Chumash, but the new English Protestants also came to believe the Spanish name, which they rendered Hellmouth.

As far as Connor had been able to ascertain, the residents of Sunnydale collectively epitomised the cliché, 'there are none so blind as those that don't want to see.' The entire population, including the Police Department, Fire Service and Sunnydale Memorial Hospital, had seemed to live in sort of wilful denial while at the same time keeping a weather eye on their resident Slayer, Buffy Summers. The entire graduating student body of 1999 - with families and local dignitaries present - had ended up battling a gigantic snake ten storeys high, yet the population had remained remarkably untraumatised.

What had actually solidified Connor's determination to come to Sunnydale into adamantine immovability was the fact that several months ago Sunnydale had made it into Ripley's _Believe It Or Not_ when the whole population of 32,000 plus residents took their summer vacation at the same time. Virtually the entire town had packed up and gone to the mountains or the coast or for the skiing on the same day. What _Believe It Or Not_ did not mention, however, was that they had taken everything with them; houses had been stripped of furniture, fixtures, fittings and all valuables; all Sunnydale banks denuded of cash.

That had happened a week to the day before an extraordinarily violent but localised earthquake had sent the town to the bottom of a crater, meaning that the death toll in the disaster had barely reached double figures. After several months of the populace wrangling with the state authorities over compensation and relocation, Buffy Summers and her sister had returned from a lengthy sojourn in Rome to set up home in an old rambling house that had survived the disaster, where they were rapidly joined by a seemingly ever-increasing number of children, teenagers and twenty-somethings, whose common denominator was that they were all female. The displaced population of Sunnydale began to rebuild the town, New Sunnydale, on the sides of the crater valley, in proximity to the 'Summers' place', or rather the work was actually being done by a local construction company operated by the Slayer's good buddy, Xander Harris, which Connor wasn't putting down to coincidence.

"...I'm sorry I had to leave so abruptly in LA." Dawn finally finished. "I had trouble with a guy – Stefan - things were getting a bit hairy."

"You mean Bad Tan?" Connor asked. Correctly interpreting her wary look, he went on, "I saw him at the Rosita Museum. I thought he looked like bad news."

Dawn looked embarrassed. "Oh yeah, in spades. I hate to say it 'cause it makes me sound sooo much the Drama Queen, but he was stalking me and -"

"Oh, that." Connor shrugged and took a sip of soda, smiling at her reassuringly. "Dawn, I come from _Los Angeles_. In the weird-and-wacky town that is LA, being stalked is practically a rite of passage for a girl. You know, Junior Prom, Senior Prom, My First Stalker-"

Dawn laughed, a light, lilting sound that hit Connor hard in the chest and slid down into his stomach; it was as if he had just taken a swallow of real hot chocolate, made with milk and pure cocoa, and just a splash of sweet liqueur like Amaretto. Then he sensed the underlying relief in Dawn's tone, and the slight widening of her eyes as if she was surprised by the sound of her own merriment, indicating that recently at least, she had had few occasions to laugh.

This is going to be one hell of a steep learning curve, Connor acknowledged as he smiled at Dawn Summers and resolutely ignored the snide voice that tagged on the proviso: _assuming you survive it_.

_**Continued in Part 2 – Chapter 2…**_

© 2004 & 2010, The Cat's Whiskers


	2. Chapter 2

_**Disclaimer: **__Please see Part 1, Chapter 1 _

**SHADOWED SOULS Part 2**

**Chapter 2**

"Scarlet Diamonds!" Decided Harmony, wiggling her toes happily and the manicurist smiled and moved to gather the appropriate implements to varnish the vampiress's toenails in her chosen colour.

Stretched out supine on the lounger next to the blonde with the boneless contentment of a cat, Fred opened her eyes and smiled at Harmony's enthusiasm, practically purring as the masseuse gently massaged her arms. Fred was no stranger to massage or being massaged, and this lady was very, very good. Fred had taken night classes in

Reflexology, Aromatherapy, Indian Head, Swedish and French Aix Massages plus other holistic treatments during her Freshman year at college; she had approached the courses with all her genius focus and hard-working diligence, not out of interest, but as a way to 'connect' with and find common ground with her fellow students. Being able to kill off the Incomprehensible-Genius-Mousy-Mega-Nerd-From-The-Hick-Backwater tag that had "gone before her" by knowing about normal stuff – had done her far more good with the other girls – and nice looking guys – at college than her off-the-scale IQ.

Being able to talk about 'bad hair days', clashing nail polish, pantyhose that laddered when you as much as looked at it and so on had meant people had quickly stopped looking at her as if she were some sort of alien because she was a girl who not only knew that Higgs Boson wasn't the latest celebrity hunk, but could actually use phrases like _hypothetical massive scalar elementary particle _without becoming hysterical or breaking out in hives. She'd been accepted as 'eccentric in a cool way' rather than avoided as a 'weirdo freak', some inadequate female version of the geek/nerds you knew would be still 'streaming live from mom's basement' at age 35.

Wesley was also skilled at massage - of course the difference being _this_ was relaxing, whereas as _that_ inevitably led to her pouncing and ravishing - not that Wesley minded.

"This is so cool!" Harmony sighed again.

"I'm glad you're enjoying it." Fred responded with just a hint of relief.

A shopping and pampering spree with a vampire was something she approached with trepidation particularly as she had never been all that fashion savvy. She hadn't been able to tell Manolo Blahnik from a chain-store factory shoe, or a $10,000 Gucci suit from a K-Mart $50 lookalike, her M.O. that of merely sticking to jeans, T-shirts and baggy knitted tops that covered all the essential ugly bits as warmly as possible. It was only after Angel had rescued Fred from Pylea that Cordy had taken on the role of Big Sister to the Fashion Victim and turned her into passable facsimile of a young woman. "In fact, I stand in awe; you're lethal with a credit card."

Harmony giggled gleefully. Entering the first _Rodeo Drive_ salon, an elegant woman in impossible heels had hove into view, her gimlet gaze fixed on Fred with supercilious disdain. But then Harmony had kicked it into high gear - she was what Diva's dreamed of being - blowing through the Drive like a hurricane, having assistants racing around her like ants, acquiring an entourage of people with boxes, bags and packages to be delivered back to their respective apartments - Fred was surprised the credit cards hadn't started begging for mercy. The supercilious assistant was practically genuflecting by the time they left.

"It's a gift," The blonde chortled. "But seriously Fred, I haven't enjoyed myself this much in ages. The last time I did _anything_ like this was back in Sunnydale when me and Cordy hit LA for a weekend before graduation..."

"You miss her, don't you, even without -" Fred stopped; aware she had been about to be incredibly tactless.

"- Without a soul?" Harmony finished without rancour. "Oh yes, I do; in fact part of the reason I agreed to our retail therapy and pampering blow-out is because I know you're one of the few people who _knows _just how much I miss her."

Fred blinked away sudden moisture; Harmony was the definitive blonde bimbo who always made you think that if you stood close enough to her you could hear the wind whistling as it blew through one ear and out the other; but periodically completely out of nowhere she spouted some incredibly insightful comment or made some bang-on-the-nail observation that left you stunned at her acumen. In many ways, Angel's grief for Cordelia was selfish – it was the resentful anguish of the lost lover; the self-absorbed bitterness of what he had lost. It did not acknowledge that Gunn, Wesley, Fred and Lorne had loved Cordy as much, albeit differently, than him – or that their grief was just as valid.

"Cordy...I hate to sound this corny, but she really was the closest thing I had to a proper family…."

"Oh, I didn't know you were an orphan," Fred backpedalled as she tuned back in to what Harmony was saying.

"No, no!" Harmony grinned, then became serious again, unconsciously laying absolutely still while the manicurist worked, which only gave her facial expressions more intensity. "Cordy was the most popular girl at Sunnydale High since forever. Me and her were very much the same - both rich families – at least until her dad had that little spat with the IRS in Senior Year."

"Oh." Well that did explain a few things – admittedly she'd been pretty out of it a long while after Angel had rescued her from Pylea, but Fred had come to realise that Cordelia had 'come from money' and had always wondered how her friend had come to be sidekick to the motley crew of vampire, gang leader, karaoke barfly who wasn't even human and a down-on-his-luck Brit.

"Death and taxes, like they say. Before that our dads both worked in the City and were pinstriped strangers with expensive leather briefcases we occasionally passed on the main stairs and thought that they were vaguely familiar; moms were dedicated socialites who smiled at us in passing but never let us get close enough to muss their Christian Dior outfits whilst they gave final instructions to the Latino Housekeeper and then swept out the door in a whirl of silk, fur, diamonds and perfume to the latest A-list networking party. The _difference _was Cordy never had any trouble at school because behind the Rich Bitch façade she really was smart enough to ace the tests when she wanted to. I took a bit longer to get there-"

"Harmony, you're not stupid, Angel would never have kept you on as his Personal Assistant if you were." Fred encouraged, knowing Harmony genuinely was a highly effective employee in that role.

"I know, but...I have a brother, Todd Kendal? He's a high flyer in Washington D.C. now I think. He's quite a few years older than me because he was intended to be the sole lord and heir, until Mother had one too many champagne flutes at New Year's and by the time she realised I wasn't a stomach ulcer it was too late to get rid of me."

Fred couldn't think of anything to say. As the much-cherished only child of parents who had, after several miscarriages, all but resigned themselves to childlessness, what

Harmony was saying, and with a total lack of self-pity to boot, was inconceivable to Fred. Her close relationship with her parents was part of the reason why she had gone to such great lengths to increase her contact with her parents whilst keeping it long-distance (phone and email) and made sure to tell them she was now living with Wesley.

She had still been trapped, voiceless and powerless, deep within Illyria when her parents had made that completely unexpected visit to Wolfram & Hart, and as such had been unable to do anything but gibber despairingly in the ancient demon's cerebellum. Mercifully, Illyria had been so irritated by the grief rolling off Wesley in suffocating waves as he showed Mr & Mrs Burkle around the building, trying to come up with some way to tell them their daughter had been murdered by the thing that still looked like her, that it had manipulated its form and manifested as Fred. The demon's actions had been the breakthrough Fred needed to keep it together, and eventually manifest again. Now, Illyria was content to let Fred operate the body more often than not, especially since Wesley had been forced to drain off a goodly amount of Illyria's powers to save the demon, and the world, from destruction when Illyria had begun bouncing around Time erratically like a rubber ball thrown by a toddler in a tantrum.

Most vitally, her parents had left happy for Hawaii, and none the wiser, though there probably would come a day when they would have to be told the truth; for instance, in the unlikely event Illyria was killed and left recognisable, largely intact remains, cremation without autopsy was a must. Fred now dared not go anywhere near a health clinic or hospital, since even a cursory medical exam would show up the bizarre transformation of her body's internal biology, revealing she was about as 'human' as Mork from Ork.

Deciding to grant herself a bit of 'Ostrich time', Fred had stuck her head in the sand and ignored the issue for now. Her parents been thrilled when she phoned them to give them her 'new' - Wesley's apartment - address, as they still saw him as the slightly geeky, genteel bookish English gentleman of their first visit to LA, unknowing of the grimmer, darker more dangerous Wesley that Fred had seen emerge during his bitter estrangement with Angel last year over...

Fred couldn't quite remember why Wesley and Angel's friendship had had been so terribly sundered, but the Beast and Jasmine as well as Holtz and Sahjhan had all been involved somewhere, two pairs of very unholy alliances! The point was, now they thought Wesley was 'looking after her' Fred's parents were less likely to decide to spontaneously visit to see how she was 'getting on'. Finding out that their beloved daughter was in fact deader than a can of spam and existed only as a soul and a few neuro-electric impulses within the cortex of a ten-million-year-old demon-god would be catastrophic for both of them...

Realising she was missing an explanation, she hastily tuned back in.

"Todd's way smarter than me." Harmony was saying, now. "He never had to _try_; just like Angel, you know - photographic memory almost? I remember getting grade C on my first report card and my dad saying it didn't matter, because at least I was pretty. That's the story of my life; my family never encouraged me be anything other than a stereotypical vapid blonde. I _was_ Alicia Silverstone in Clueless. But whenever I let myself think about the loneliness and how empty my life was, Cordelia was always there for me. That's why, deep down, I always knew my life would be over after High School, because Cordy wouldn't be there to help. It was so simple back then, because in the back of my mind I knew without a shadow of a doubt that if anything 'real' ever went down, Cordelia was the one I could rely on."

"She was extraordinary." Fred's eyes misted over again as she was swamped with memories of her beautiful, witty, sarcastic, generous, kind, heroic friend.

"Yeah...when I first came to LA, I found her; 'Harmony's a vampire'? She didn't bat an eyelash. I was her friend, I was unhappy, 'nuff said." Harmony grinned. "Wesley and Angel burst in with stakes and found us on the couch painting each other's toenails; boy, did Cordy singe their eyebrows! I owe her, you know; she gave me a chance when nobody else would, she always made me feel that I could be useful at something if I put my mind to it."

"Is that when you started working in Wolfram & Hart's typing pool?"

"Yeah...Graduation for the Class of '99. You should have seen it; even now I can't believe we pulled it off." Harmony held out her arm so the manicurist could get to her hand nails. "Buffy told us the Mayor was intending to make us canapés, and then told us how we were gonna kick his ass instead. We're legendary in Northern California, the Sunnydale Class of '99."

"That's when..." Once again Fred allowed the sentence to trail off as she glanced around the elegant spa they were in.

Personal grooming for a vampire was, of course, extraordinarily problematic since the lack of reflection meant they couldn't _see_ what to brush, pluck and cover up with foundation. This place was extortionately expensive, but catered almost exclusively to a vampiric and demonic clientele who needed others to do their personal grooming or to disguise inconvenient bodily features like vestigial horns; the sharp swords, large crosses and 'decorative' wooden sculptures that ended in sharp points acted as _aide memoires_ to the more frisky clients and prevented them snacking on the staff.

"I got vamped? Oh yes." Harmony gave a bitter laugh. "If anyone had told me I'd be dead at eighteen...Fat lot of good my mom and dad's: "'You don't need to worry, you're pretty'" riff did for me when I lost the ability to ever look in a mirror again. You know the worst thing? I'm just as much a nonentity now I'm a vampire as I was when I was one of the 'Cordettes' at Sunnydale High. I don't even have a vampire lineage I can boast about!"

"Lineage?" Fred frowned as her own nails were manicured and polished, reminding herself to keep still, her mind flitting back to the unfortunate encounter with the Cyborg-known-as-Roger-Wyndham-Pryce.

Harmony gave a wry smile. "I was attacked from behind as I ran down the steps – I never even saw the guy - or girl - that Sired me, and whoever it was obviously wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer. Our dear Mayor wanted lots of handy corpses to munch on to sustain his giant snake transformation, not new _Nosferatu_, so just like when I was born, my Siring was an unintentional accident. It's enough to give a girl a complex."

"You've no idea?" Fred had been a little bit jealous of Faith, when the Dark Slayer came to LA last year to capture Angelus, because of Wesley being her Watcher at one time.

Fred had seen that a strange bond still existed between the pair; when Angel was 'back' from being Angelus and she had eventually broached the subject one evening, he had said that the connection between a Slayer and her Watcher, while not always one of affection, was nevertheless intense, complicated and profound. Not reassuring, and what little Fred had learned of Faith's biography made uncomfortable reading. Faith Lehane had a blank space under 'father' on her birth certificate, her alcoholic mother had spent her life on social security living in a rundown trailer park, supplementing her income with prostitution; one such encounter presumably resulting in Faith; 'white trash' as the bigoted would claim.

Seeing the look now on Harmony's face, Fred realised that a vampire who had no knowledge of its Sire must experience pretty much the same feelings of abandonment and resentment as Faith clearly had towards her led-around-by-his-dick biological 'father' and waste-of-space mother.

"Buffy told us to get clear as soon as we could. Like I said, I was running down the steps towards the sidewalk with everyone else, when someone grabbed me from behind and I felt a terrible pain in my neck; I struggled - I must have cut the vampire with one of my rings as I tried to get away and a bit of our blood obviously mingled enough to turn me...I woke up in Sunnydale Cemetery in an expensive coffin that I utterly ruined my nails clawing out of in blind panic and found I'd been buried with the other – really dead – victims of the Mayor, like poor Larry."

Fred nodded, unable to imagine herself in such a scenario, despite all her experiences.

"And that was that. I managed to hide out and found the whole world had turned topsy-turvy in barely a week. Angel and Cordy had both left for LA – independently of each other at that point. Oz had left for Tibet because of the werewolf thing, and my parents had upped stakes – no pun intended – and moved lock, stock and barrel to Baltimore nearer my brother Todd, in the fond belief I was rotting in the coffin they buried in Sunnydale Cemetery."

"Actually, I can relate – a bit." Fred didn't like to remember Pylea but felt a pang for Harmony's whose fate wasn't her fault. "In Pylea humans were slaves – treated as cattle and as if we had as much intelligence. I hid out in caves scavenging for food. My whole world had been ripped away from me and I literally went crazy for a while."

"Sunnydale has a big network of underground caves and sewers, that's where I hid out too." I know you can't really relate to this part, but for a vampire who your Sire is gives you cachet, you know? Okay, Spike rocks in a fight and is notorious on his own account, but part of his rep', at least initially, was based on the fact that he is the grandson of Angelus. Back when he was bad – I mean Angelus, he Sired barely half-a-dozen vamps all told, and of those, Drusilla and her sireling, Spike, are the only two Angelus kept with him for decades and put himself at risk to protect. Angelus himself was the grandson of the Master. You can't _buy_ that sort of pedigree."

"I suppose not." Wesley had shown her a depiction of the self-styled Master, whom Buffy had killed, in one of his many demonology texts. That Angel was the evil thing's grandson had never occurred to her, even though she knew of the line: The Master Sired Darla Sired Angelus Sired Drusilla Sired Spike Sired...'?' Until now Fred had never given any thought to whether the blond vampire had Sired anyone and she wondered if he had – and if they were still around. Not a restful thought.

"I'm not stupid. I'm good at being Angel's PA, but I'm not good at being a vampire. I just don't have what it takes and yes, I do resent the hell out of being a vampire." Harmony admitted. "You remember that crazy Slayer, Dana Parvati, who tortured Spike and hacked his arms off?"

"Oh, yes!"

"I heard Angel tell Wesley that when he went to see Spike in Wolfram & Hart's medical clinic after they'd reattached his arms, Spike said to Angel that Dana was too far gone to save, that she was a monster, like him and Angel. Angel protested to Spike that Dana was just an innocent victim. Spike said: "'So were we, once,'" and Angel didn't know what to say."

"What did Wesley say to that?"

"That Spike had been right. He told Angel, "'The Master, Darla, Liam, Drusilla, William. You were all innocent victims of a terrible crime, Angel, each one of you was unfortunate enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, like the opportunist burglar who becomes a spontaneous rapist because the homeowner decides to treat herself to an afternoon off work for a change, and you all paid a terrible price for events beyond your control.'" Wesley finished by saying he hoped Spike was wrong about Dana, but he agreed that she seemed too damaged to help much."

Fred found herself nodding in agreement; much as she wished she could argue, it did seem that Dana's tragic past had left her too mentally ill to ever truly recover.

Harmony closed her eyes as the beautician placed freshly sliced cucumber over each eye and began to smooth mineral enriched mud over her face to enhance her complexion, moving her mouth minimally but still managing to speak with surprisingly clarity to Fred. "I try not to wallow in the pity, but I resent not being able to see myself in a mirror. I resent not being able to contact my family at all, forever, regardless of how shallow they are. How you and Wesley are together? I resent not having that. Cordelia figured it out way before I did; her having the visions and all."

"Figured what out?" Fred hesitated as Harmony lost her at that point.

"The doomed-romance curse that I'm also stuck with, courtesy of the Hellmouth. Buffy and Angel - well we know how _that_ ended don't we? Then Willow and Oz-the-werewolf, say no more; is it any surprise she went all great big lesbo..? It wouldn't surprise me if the witch was still in love with howls-at-the-moon-boy on some level. Xander Harris: Vengeance Demon. And then there's Rupert Giles. I mean, even aside from the fact he's old, his score was Jenny Calendar – murdered by Angel – Angelus – and Buffy's mom, Joyce; brain tumour, natch. How long has Buffy been single since she thought Spike had been deep-fried saving the world?"

It was a litany of lovelorn woe; and Fred had always thought being a genius IQ girl with a pancake chest and no hips was the most serious problem anyone could have in their search for a love-life.

"Cordy knew the deck was stacked against her. I mean, her first serious relationship is with a part-demon alternate dimension superhero, not that I dislike The Groosalug by any means, and for her second real-deal relationship she skips right over the hunk-o-rama twins Wesley and Gunn and goes straight for our very own Tall, Dark And Broody dead guy." Harmony pointed out with surprising shrewdness.

"I never thought of it like that," Fred admitted.

"I keep telling myself that somewhere out there is a guy so superficial as to appreciate an eternally young and beautiful wife enough to overlook the 'dead' part, but I look at what you and Wesley have going together and I just get so fed-up because in the back of my mind I know I'll never have what you have. I'll never have my white wedding, my CEO husband, my country club membership, my pool boy lover, my nice home...my pretty little daughter..." Harmony trailed off, completely oblivious to the sudden stricken look on Fred's face as she stared at the vampiress.

_Continued in Part 2 - Chapter 3_

2004 & 2010 The Cat's Whiskers


	3. Chapter 3

_**Disclaimer: **__Please see Part 1, Chapter 1 _

**SHADOWED SOULS Part 2**

**Chapter 3**

Gunn tentatively pushed open one of the familiar glass-paned double doors and it swung back silently. Stepping into the lobby, feeling ridiculously self-conscious in his Gucci suit, though he had long discarded his tie and unbuttoned the top of his shirt, he shoved his hands deeper into his pants' pockets and looked around, noting with surprise that the plants were still going strong.

_Maybe the ectoplasm from so many ghosts keeps 'em going, or something_.

It was amazing how normal the place looked. Dusty and a little bit faded but otherwise...

For an instant, Gunn actually _saw_ a faint, ghostly echo of Cordy at her desk behind the reception counter, and half expected Wesley to wander out of what had originally been the Hyperion manager's office, incomprehensible mystical text in one hand, absent-minded frown on his face, while Lorne amused himself by testing the lobby acoustics in between dispensing witty truisms, with Fred working on the computer opposite Cordy and Angel would stroll down the stairs wearing his seemingly endless supply of black slacks and cable-knit black sweaters.

Gunn closed his eyes against a wave of longing so intense it threatened to crush his heart. If he'd known then - he would have run screaming into the night rather than go anywhere near that limo Wolfram & Hart had sent to the Hyperion. Which, he supposed, was why so few humans were gifted with clairvoyance; such a talent was certainly not in the best interests of the Senior Partners. He gave a deep sigh as he instinctively inhaled deeply but only got back mustiness and dust, instead of what used to be the ever-present aromas of lethal coffee, a.k.a. 'Cordelia's sludge', Wesley's weird scented teas and the occasional smell of burning if Cordy had gone into one of her 'I really can cook if I want to' phases.

He had only come here on an impulse, a loose end. He had gone into the Suburban Hell holding dimension with full intent of taking Lindsey's place, and no real hope of ever leaving, though he knew Angel at least would keep trying to get him out - for a while, anyway, until that unyielding 'greater good' bottom line kicked in. Being rescued from that place by the same thing that had killed his friend took definite adjustment; as he'd told Wesley: "'This place's gone _Poseidon_ on my ass.'" But then hadn't Angel Investigations precipitated the Poseidon thing themselves by coming to Wolfram & Hart in the first place?

The world had gone spinning off its axis in a major way; that was for damn sure. Spike, who on the face of it seemed to be the Poster Child for Reckless Irresponsibility, had been taking up more and more of the slack as Angel's usual second-in-command, Wesley, obsessed – literally and with drinking binges and worrying mental instability - about Illyria. Lorne was well on his way to Alcoholics Anonymous and had acquired a bitter edge to his manner that possibly disturbed Gunn more than anything.

As for Angel...Gunn had been flabbergasted when Angel turned over that baby to the Fell Brethren in such a hard-nosed manner, he hadn't really known what to think when Angel had stalked off leaving Gunn open-mouthed in the outer lobby of his office with Marcus Hamilton smirking like a cat that got the cream and the canary. Later, on the quiet, Angel had told Gunn he was 'working on' getting the boy back, muttering something about a sphere and black roses with thorns or something. Gunn hadn't known what to think and still didn't, but considering the utter mess he'd made of things, the least he could do was give Angel some leeway before jumping to the conclusion that Angelus was back - or that Angel had simply gone nuts from the strain.

Gunn moved further in, going down a step as he looked up at the circular rotunda of the lobby roof. Determined to remind himself of where he'd come from, as he should have done in the first place, he'd taken to wearing his street-clothes more to work, only donning the $5,000 hand-tailored Gucci suits for the really top-flight or most obnoxious clients, which was why he'd been wearing one today...and how he'd come to be hooked up with Gwen again.

Gritting his teeth in one of LA's most exclusive restaurants a short while ago, the food had tasted like ashes in Gunn's mouth as he maintained a polite façade for the guy who was one of the firm's best clients - and who redefined the description 'scumbag'. Persevering by mentally chanting the mantra 'billable hours' to himself, he had been oblivious to all around him, but the original supercharged woman, Gwen Raidan, had nearly fallen off her chair as she saw Charles Gunn decked out like the CEO of Microsoft daintily tucking into Mousse de Canard and vintage Kristal at $1,000 a pop. Cornering him in the parking lot, she'd almost been prepared to zap him in the conviction he was some impostor.

Somehow, Gunn found himself in a more downmarket back street bar, pouring out the whole sordid story. After calling him a 'total asshole' and smacking his head hard enough to bruise him, Gwen had proven surprisingly supportive, enough to take up where their brief liaison last year had left off. Gwen was intelligent while not having the sky-high IQ of Fred that had secretly so intimidated Gunn, and above all, they met on equal terms. In retrospect, Gunn had long since realised that he and Fred, while they loved each other, they had never really been _in_ love with each other. Fred had been seeking someone to be a personal protector, her very own Champion in a way that Angel as the Champion of the whole of humanity couldn't be and Gunn himself had subconsciously been trying to not fail Fred as he'd failed Alannah.

Gwen Raidan was about as defenceless as an angry tiger and much more deadly; she gave him his space to deal with all the craziness that came with being part of Team Angel, grounding him in a way that he had needed, while at the same time making it clear that she had responsibilities of her own to take care of and that her world didn't revolve around Angel's quest for humanity, to save the world, stop The Apocalypse, an Apocalypse or whatever was the main Job For The Day.

Hence Gunn being unexpectedly at a loose end this evening. The call had come through on his office's direct line at just before five as he was heading out to meet Gwen - she'd been called to Nagoya, Japan, unexpectedly. The Japanese guy Gwen had stolen the prototype from after duping Gunn into being her accomplice had proved persistently homicidal even after Gwen, as she'd told Gunn, had copied the device and broken in again to return the original. What had stopped his ire was discovering why the Occidental woman had stolen it in the first place. Turned out Asian And Angry was a close relative of the Emperor who recognised a golden goose when he heard of one. Now Gwen Raidan had a very lucrative and legitimate career as scientific consultant to various technological corporations like Sony, Time, etc., plus some serious socio-political Asian connections with the Japanese Imperial family.

Uncertain as to what to do since his planned evening of great food and greater sex with his lady had been derailed, Gunn had been seized by a sudden impulse, and had made his way here, deciding he needed to remind himself again of his roots, coming for a look around the closest place he'd ever had to a happy home after Grandma had died and he and Alannah had been forced to make their lives on the streets -

"Lord Grumpy was banging about in the rafters," the disembodied voice stated laconically, "...Ain't heard him for a while, mind you."

"Yik!" With this un-macho yelp, Gunn jumped a good two inches straight up in the air before desperately trying to regain his composure while glaring at Spike, who leaned forward from where he had been sitting in one of the Hyperion lobby's alcoves, completely hidden from view (even the platinum hair) by a large potted shrub.

The blond vampire laid down the book he had been reading and regarded Gunn with one sardonically raised eyebrow and an expression of amusement.

Absently Gunn saw the rich green and red colouring of the old book's leather cover, and realised it must be that Keats guy book Dawn had bought for Spike. "What're you doing here?" He tried to go on the offensive: "It's Friday night, why aren't you in the nearest strip joint or bar?"

Spike merely shrugged in a familiar manner that told Gunn pursuing the matter was pointless. Spike was very good at simply ignoring questions he didn't want to answer. Instead the peroxide-haired vampire gave him an assessing look and decreed, "You look like a bloke in need of a drink."

Gunn followed as Spike walked from the lobby into the Hyperion's main bar, located unsurprisingly for the convenience of patrons in the very next room. Gunn's eyes flicked nervously towards the shadows of the large room, which had been designed to mimic an early 1920s speakeasy, since by the time its construction was complete the foolish and disastrous _Volstead Act_ had been repealed; when he'd lived here it had never bothered him, but now he was fancying he could see the amorphous shapes of the hotel's many resident ghosts coalescing and writhing - though maybe that was the guilt.

"You got whisky, whisky or whisky." Going behind the bar, Spike took down a shot glass, wiped it on his shirt and poured in a finger from the bottle of Jack Daniels on the counter behind the bar.

Sitting on a barstool, Gunn picked up the shot glass and contemplated the amber liquid for a moment, before downing it in one and holding out the glass. Spike raised his eyebrows sceptically - it was his bottle after all - but after a moment relented and poured the morose man another shot. "So, why're you imitating our very own Brooding Master of Misery and how I can help so I can get rid of you and get back to my book?"

"I just wanted to see the hotel again." Gunn retorted defensively but felt himself deflate as the vampire rolled his eyes. So he admitted, "Fred was right, you know? The six of us were tight when we lived here at the Hyperion. We were a family. I miss that." Gunn shrugged self-consciously, "Never thought I'd have a family after I lost Alannah. 'M just feeling a bit nostalgic."

"As well as being up for a bit of self-flagellation." Spike tagged on shrewdly. "If I'd known the job description for Hero included "Wallowing in Guilt to the point of driving all around you nuts", I'd have let Sunnyhell burn and stayed evil. God, you people are depressing to be around."

"You feel no remorse that you were a sadistic monster," challenged Gunn, semi-seriously believing his own accusation.

"Every single second of every single day, mate." Spike shot back harshly. "Diff' is, unlike our Glorious Leader and you, you poof, I don't drive everybody around me nuts by going on about it every single sodding second of the day!"

"Sorry." Gunn said softly but sincerely, taking a sip of the JD and feeling the welcome acidic sting at the back of his throat.

"'Nother one?" Spike hefted the bottle.

"Yeah." Gunn sighed and allowed the blond to refill his glass, prudence dictating this be his last. Warmth was flushing through him from his rapid ingestion of the potent libation, and he hadn't eaten since lunch.

His lips twisted in self-loathing - _potent libation_, damn that legal stuff Wolfram & Hart had stuffed him with - they had indeed stuffed him, like a chicken and he'd been stupid enough to fall for it. "I just...you know...I never thought I could ever lose the mission."

"That was your first mistake." Spike pointed out dryly.

"Tell me about it. It was one of my grandma's favourite sayings:"'Pride cometh before a crash, Charles,'" she always used to say when I was trying to come the Big Dog."

Gunn contemplated his drink, aware that the alcohol had loosened his tongue as he made his confession to this unlikeliest of confidantes. "Last year - don't get me wrong, Wesley's my homie, and Angel too, but last year, when they had that rift between them, I was soooo smug."

"Why?" Spike poured himself a drink and leaned on the bar, seemingly prepared to listen like any real bartender.

Idly Gunn wondered why no bartenders ever seemed to try to take over the world, with all the inside scoop they had to have…the secrets the average barkeep must know boggled the mind. "When I first met Angel, I lost Alannah to the vampires and Angel _was_ a vampire, but I looked at him and I knew he had the mission. I couldn't believe his Crew..."

Gunn grinned despite himself as he remembered. "Rich white Valley gal and this four-eyed clumsy geek. He needed me. But even then, if you really looked at Wesley you could see what was underneath, the iron fist inside the velvet glove, I guess. Me and Wes; we were tight but even so, he didn't completely let his guard down. Wes knew vampires had killed my sister, so when I first came by, he was always around me and Angel."

Spike raised an eyebrow slightly again and Gunn tried to explain himself, "Wes tended to always put his body between me and Angel, or at least always be close enough to slow me down if I decided to dust Mr Broody. In the end it became an unconscious habit that Wesley didn't mean anything by, but still it bugged me a little in the back of my mind..."

"So, last year, Angel and Wes' had some handbags at ten paces spat?" Spike clarified, having been a tad busy himself during that year co-saving the world from the First Evil.

"Angel and Wesley had this hellacious fight about a year and a half ago." Gunn scowled at his drink, "Y'know I still can't quite remember what it was all about. Something about Wes thought Angel was gonna kill some kid or something but it was all a fake by this demon called Sahjhan who wanted Angel dead, if you follow me. Anyway, turns out this Sahjhan could travel through time and bring things to the present - he brought this vampire hunter named Holtz-"

"Holtz!" Spike whistled apprehensively. "Holtz was the only _human_ I ever saw Angelus worry about. Even over a century after the guy mysteriously disappeared, Angelus staked a vampire right in front of me just for saying the bloke's name."

"Yeah, well, turns out Wes had been secretly meeting Holtz over this fake prophecy that Sahjhan used to gull Wes. Lorne found out about it so Wes clocked him over the skull with that statue in the manager's office and did a runner but one of Holtz's gang attacked him. After that...Wes and Angel - that relationship was over, severed, ended, finito, burned bridge, closed door - insert the cliché of your choice."

"And you feel guilty about Angel and Wesley's little spat because…?"

Gunn grimaced. "Wes was my friend and I didn't believe he'd deliberately hurt us. I wanted to mend fences, truly but deep, deep down inside, I also just couldn't help but bask in self-righteous satisfaction. Wes was the mystical genius, Wes was Angel's right hand man, Wes doled out orders to Gunn-just-the-muscle, but now Mr Smarty Pants had shot himself in the foot, now Angel would see that he didn't need a bespectacled nerd to watch his back, 'cause he still had me. Pathetic, huh?"

"Nah, just human." Spike paused, then rephrased, "Or maybe just sentient. Wanting our friends to like us best and being jealous over the attention someone we love gives to someone else is something that exists in almost every intelligent being. It's not nice, but it's a fact."

"I get that - now. Holtz attacked Angel and managed to entomb him alive at the bottom of the ocean for three months. Wes saved him - and just walked out on us." Gunn scowled. "But whenever we needed him, he came back. The Beast was turning LA into its personal Twilight Zone, Cordy was possessed by an evil demon that gave birth to itself - Jasmine, natch. Wes just did what was needed. He brought Faith to capture Angelus..." Gunn's voice trailed off and he took another drink.

"What happened?" Spike dropped his voice an octave, encouraging confidence.

"Angelus came to the hotel, he ran outside as Wes and Faith were coming in, Angelus grabbed Wes, threatened to snap his neck, so Faith let him go." Gunn recapped. "They decided to go out after him again, and I was there. Wes and Faith didn't see that I'd followed them, they couldn't see me standing next to the doors, but I heard what they were saying. Faith was giving it the military commands deal, ordering him to stay frosty and all that, and Wes was all snippy – I mean, yeah he was right, but in that real condescending English way that makes everyone hate you people, yah know?"

"It's a gift." Spike smirked with no discernable modesty. "What'd he say?"

"She said for Wes to stay cool or frosty while she did the fighting and then Wes interrupted and sniped something about, "you'll let him escape again.'" Faith shot something back about being the boy hostage - and Wes -" Gunn broke off and took a generous swig of his drink, which Spike obligingly refilled as Gunn went on. "Wes claimed that Faith had screwed up by not taking down Angel when she had the chance. He said, "'Angelus was right, you should have gone for him.'"

"That surprised you." Spike commented rather than asked.

"Well, _yeah_. It was like he didn't even _bother _about the fact that Angelus would have killed him before Faith had taken a single step," Gunn went on, "which is exactly what Faith pointed out, she told him, " 'He would have killed you.'""

"And what did Wesley say that's got you all twisted up?" Spike enquired.

Gunn stared at his drink, ashamed. "Wesley just looked at her and said, "And how many will he have the chance to murder now because you let that make a difference?"'

Gunn raised his head to meet Spike's eyes properly for the first time. "I never really got it until that moment, but as the two of them walked off into the night to hunt Angelus, I finally understood that Wesley would do whatever it took to make sure Angel achieved redemption, even if it literally killed _him_ in the process. He was prepared to let what he thought was his own father shoot him dead to save Angel, for God's sake! I think...I think on some level, Wes accepted his death - sometimes, even now, despite all that we've got, I still can't shake the feeling that Wes doesn't expect to make it, like Cordelia didn't make it or that Doyle guy."

"I could have told you that after my first look at his apartment." Spike commented.

"'Serial killer chic,'" Gunn quoted Spike's own summary of the decor back at him. "You're not wrong. Angel and Wesley snapped back into it to defeat Jasmine and that was it, they were back to being friends. I was relieved, but at the same time, I still had that smug knowledge that while Wes had fallen off the straight and narrow, Charles Gunn was still there talking the talk and walking the walk. I spent practically my whole life fighting vampires and demons, trying to raise Alannah right, I could smell a con like you can smell haemoglobin. I was way too savvy and street-smart to ever fall for anything even Wolfram & Hart could pull...but of course I did. I pounced on the first filet mignon they waved under my greedy nose, and Fred paid the price." Gunn confessed bitterly. "Right from the start they set me up to start losing the legal stuff they put in my head, and when I went running back, they waved that form in front of me. I knew I was signing something bad, but I didn't care. All I knew was that I couldn't lose the shiny new toy that made me as useful to Angel as Wes and Fred because now I was as smart as Wes and Fred. If Alannah was here now she'd kick my stupid ass into the middle of next week."

"And I'd help her." Spike told him bluntly, rolling his eyes as Gunn's mouth dropped open slightly and the black man looked surprised. "What? You thought Uncle Spike would give you ten Hail Marys and Absolution, or else I'd comfortingly pat you the head and say, "'There, there, you didn't mean any harm?'" Newsflash: you were stupid and selfish and because of that a girl I happen to like very much died painfully and then got trapped inside her own body with a ten-million-year-old demon in the driving seat. It's called bitter remorse - welcome to my world."

"You don't get forgiveness that easy, Gunn."

Gunn jumped as Angel walked into the room; he hated it when Angel sneaked up on him like that. Walking up to the bar, Angel raised one eyebrow and Spike obediently poured his grandsire some of the Jack Daniels. Despite his nervous embarrassment over the fact that Angel must have overhead his and Spike's entire conversation, Gunn noted the subtle difference in the two vampires' attitudes to each other - the bitterly resentful adversarial clashes that had seen them literally almost kill each other during their battle for the Cup of Perpetual Torment had ended after Fred's death.

Their shared, shameful history of atrocities no longer drove a wedge between them but gave Spike and Angel a common bond that enabled them to fight for mutual redemption with each other not against each other. There was still mondo bickering, especially once Fred had been able to manifest her presence again, but it was almost a normal big-brother-little-brother habit than serious conflict, with even occasional flashes of mutual affection.

With sudden insight, Gunn realised that the way Spike had not only been willing to die to save Fred, but had vowed to spend his remaining existence fighting the Big Bad alongside his grandsire in her memory, had forced Angel, and them all, to accept the fact that the punk vampire really did have a soul and really was trying to atone for his crimes just as Angel was, and while he might not always act wisely, he was sincere in his efforts.

"Francis Doyle once said that we all have things to atone for. I tortured and murdered hundreds of innocent people for fun. So did Spike. Lorne ran away from his problems in Pylea rather than deal with them. Wesley got into bed with the enemy, literally. You...you were greedy." Angel commented flatly, taking a healthy swig of the Jack Daniels. "Fred's forgiven you, so has Wes, so have I...but you can't forgive yourself because you know that you haven't earned it - yet. You do your best to make sure that something good comes out of what happened, and make damned sure you never do anything that stupid ever again, and then you'll have atoned."

Spike raised his full shot glass. "Charles Gunn: welcome to Redemption-Seekers Unanimous."

Three glasses clinked together.

_To be concluded in Part 2 – Chapter 4_

© 2004 & 2010 The Cat's Whiskers


	4. Chapter 4

_**Disclaimer: **__Please see Part 1, Chapter 1 _

**SHADOWED SOULS Part 2**

**Chapter 4**

Wesley gave a resigned sigh and relaxed slightly on his barstool in the corner of the bar next to the back exit.

On the next stool, which he had swivelled to face Wesley, the weasel-faced man, who was going by the name Gark, or possibly Garry - Wesley wasn't entirely sure due to the noise level of _Ye Olde Britannia_, typically approaching 'din' on a Friday - gave a semi-apologetic shrug of his shoulders. "Unfortunately the Oligarchs' idea of jumping from dimension to dimension every few Earth days to thwart Buffy Summers attempts to track them is rather inspired. The good news is that it's about the pinnacle of their genius."

"But the bad news – again - is that it negates almost all mystical methods of tracking them before they attempt another attack on the Slayers." Wesley acknowledged. "The only concrete method to circumvent their relocations is to travel the Ghost Roads?"

"Regrettably, yes." Gark or Garry confirmed. "The only other solid information my employers have been able to ascertain is that the incident with the six Slayers did not go as the Oligarchs anticipated."

"They killed a Slayer on the first attempt. I think they did sufficient damage." Wesley consciously had to moderate his tone.

Inclining his head slightly, Gark/Garry expounded, "What my employers determined was that the Oligarchs' sorcery was intended to work _permanently_, not disable the Slayers for just a few seconds, but for some reason it didn't work."

Despite the noise level, Gark/Garry lowered his already whispery voice as he explained, "How the First Slayer was made is generally known around various dimensions, and the Oligarchs' spell was basically just a simple reversal of what the Shadowmen did when they chained the girl to the earth and infused her with demonic energy - take out rather than put in."

"So logically, it should have worked."

"Just so. However, its spectacular failure rather proves that there was more to that event that anyone seems to know about, including Miss Summers, for all she confronted the Shadowmen before stopping the First Evil."

"Buffy had only travelled back in time a few minutes when the Shadowmen tried to forcibly infuse her with even more of the dark energy. Buffy didn't take kindly to that, and the situation deteriorated from there. Obviously there were nuances that were missed. I'll see what I can find out on the Ghost Roads." Slipping a hand into his favoured brown suede jacket Wesley pulled out a number of bills and held them out to Gark/Garry.

Who raised his hand and made a negating gesture.

"Your employers don't strike me as the charitable type." Commented Wesley suspiciously.

"Hardly." Gark/Garry almost smiled, not a pleasant sight on that face. "My employers appreciate your professional attitude with regard to the information industry, and have instructed me to explore the possibility of, at least on this occasion, a barter arrangement rather than direct remuneration."

"Barter." Wesley said the word flatly; the oldest system of commerce: you give me that wheel, I give you this stegosaurus steak - so what were Gark/Garry's employers after?

"My employers happened to hear on good authority that you still make the best mojo in town." The weasel-faced man commented obliquely.

For a moment it didn't register, then Wesley recalled, crystal-clear, the final words ever uttered to him by his dear friend, Cordelia Chase, as he stepped into the elevator with the rest of Team Angel: "_'Wesley, you still work the best mojo in town.'"_ With painful clarity Wesley recalled how they had gone to the Cat & Fiddle to wait for Cordy and Angel, sat around the table with their drinks.

When Angel had arrived, alone, twenty minutes later, Wesley had felt his intestines twist into knots inside him at the vampire's haunted face. Angel had been frank about what had passed between him and their very own Cordy, including how the hospital had phoned to inform Angel that Cordelia Chase had died without ever regaining consciousness after months in a coma; utterly confused by this patently ridiculous information from the hospital, Angel had turned to look behind him, and found himself standing alone in his office.

Cordelia had warned Angel that the Powers That Be owed her a massive favour, and that she was on a different road now. Had it all been mass hysteria? Nothing more than simply a group hallucination?

Spike, incredibly, had snapped them out of their bleak fugue with his unique insight: _"'Bollocks. I bit the girl. She was solid and real and warm and she was alive. Whatever the hell she was, Cordelia Chase was here, and you all got the chance to say goodbye to your friend, which is a hell of a lot more than most people get, so stop feeling so sorry for yourselves.'" _The blond vampire had raised his shot glass of Jack Daniels, _"Here's to our Princess.'"_

They had all clinked glasses, uttering: "'Cordelia'", in unison. Given their lifestyle, that Cordy had made a will was a big non-surprise; what was that Angel and Wesley were her main heirs, and she'd left enough money to buy her apartment and secure the future of Phantom Dennis, though of course Wesley had already purchased it. Instead he and Angel had instead placed the money into an expense account for Gru', who lived quite happily with his non-corporeal roommate in his role as LA's peripatetic all-purpose Champion.

Cordelia had left her interment to Angel's discretion; everyone including Gru' and Spike had attended the evening service when Cordelia was buried in the small, quiet old cemetery near the site of Angel's original apartment building, directly next to the grave of Wesley's Angel Investigations predecessor, Francis Doyle. Usually once a week, Wesley stopped off for half an hour on his way home, finding comfort merely in sitting on the mossy bench on the gravel path directly opposite their dignified tombstones that Angel paid to be cleaned and maintained monthly.

Now, his grey eyes leached of colour, taking on a flat sheen those that knew him would have recognised and feared. "I don't undertake private consultations."

"My employers instructed me to assure you they intend no disrespect towards your painful loss." Gark hastened to answer as he slid off the barstool. "However, as a gesture of good faith and hope in our future business relationship, they ordered me to provide you with the following information, _gratis_, which may give you some peace of mind: True Prophecy cannot be circumvented, no matter how hard someone might try."

Confused, Wesley watched the weasel-faced man slip out of the back, the creature seeming to almost dissolve into the encroaching blackness of the alley. Who knew, maybe he did. Wesley took a gulp of his pint, his thoughts still on Cordy's death; damn, he missed her. Whatever Gark/Garry's bosses want, it was doubtless morally ambiguous at best and downright wrong at worst. Wesley had no intention of playing ball, they could take cash or he'd find a new source. They could sweeten the pot all they wanted, though what that cryptic utterance was supposed to convey he had no notion at all.

Ignoring the quarter of a pint left on the bar counter, Wesley got up and also headed out the back way. If he was going to get any answers he was going to have to walk the Ghost Roads, something a sensible man did absolutely sober and with great caution, or preferably not at all.

Historically an Oligarchy in Britain had been a small group of businessmen who united to wield more political and social influence together, particularly during the Industrial Revolution, so presumably these Oligarchs were likewise a group of evil sorcerers and/or demons who had banded together to reverse Willow's efforts and return the Slayers into the Slayer, or more likely get rid of the Slayers altogether. It certainly explained why Willow's scrying had been unsuccessful; their constant moving hadn't allowed her to obtain any sort of 'fix', and even the most potent mystical mojo required a starting point of reference from which to operate.

He would call Giles first thing in the morning before attempting to access the Ghost Roads. It would probably not be prudent to attempt such a thing within the already mystically murky atmosphere of Wolfram & Hart, which left his own apartment or Cordy's place. He could imagine Phantom Dennis's reaction to such an attempt; just because he was dead, Dennis wasn't stupid, so that left home sweet home. At least if anything went wrong, Illyria was more than capable of annihilating anything that made it through the portal. Unless...what about the Hyperion?

It made sense the more Wesley considered the idea. There was plenty of 'mystical background radiation' to anchor the portal to the Ghost Roads to the hotel without Wesley needing to do it, and surely some of the hotel's gross over-population of spooks and spectres would be so bored with the Hyperion that they would be happy to explore the Ghost Roads, thus reducing the number of those who spent their time moaning, groaning, rattling, clanking and generally being a pain in the ass, such as hiding all Angel's tools when the ghosts didn't like the colour scheme he had chosen for one of the bedrooms…

Wesley knew the two vampires were closing in on him a good two seconds before they segued from the shadows of the cut-through behind _Ye Olde Britannia_. An earlier Slayer - the one before the one before India Cohen, Buffy's immediate predecessor, if Wesley recalled the Watcher Web Diaries correctly - had explained the ability to sense a vampire attack as: "'Imagine you're a person trying to tune in a radio when you can only get static. You're turning the dial round and round and every so often, just for a split second, you get blank space, hit dead air before you go on. Being a Slayer is like living every moment of your life in noisy static, but every so often, you hit a patch of blank space. The vampire coming up behind you is that blank space; you sense the absence of what should be there, but isn't.'"

With experience, non-Slayers could do it too. After years of living around Buffy, and then around Spike, Xander Harris, Willow Rosenberg, et al, had it, and after several years of close proximity to Angel so did Wesley, as had Cordelia. Ironically, it was the complete absence of noise that gave the vampires away - there was a large lump of flesh moving towards you, but there was no faint breathing, no scuff of shoe against tarmac, no detectible scent of perspiration, no beating heart or adrenaline increased pulse, merely the complete absence of what should be there that was as marked in its own way, albeit much more subtle, as a sudden loud noise in a quiet room.

The first vampire's teeth closed on empty air instead of sinking deep into the back of the human male's neck; even as he checked on detecting traces of not one but two powerful vampires from the human's throat he exploded into a dust cloud, but Wesley was already a foot away, the retractable stake lashing out towards the second vampire who, more by luck than judgement, was just out of range.

The third vampire, hanging back in his position as leader, hissed in rage as his first Sireling was dusted at just a week old, the over-inflated ego he'd possessed as a human (and which had led to him being killed by a vampire in the first place) still fully present. He jumped forward, him and his other Sireling circling the human male who moved with them and who looked infuriatingly unbothered by the fact that he was about to become a midnight snack. The leader caught a strange-but-peculiarly-familiar, very faint odour mingled with the man's own scent and his preternatural eyesight detected the virtually invisible marks either side the human's neck at the jugular and carotid artery.

The leader's circling hitched with momentary uncertainty - he could almost taste the thrumming power, a clear tang even in the faint traces that the two unknown vampires had left from their feeding. This guy had been fed upon by two very powerful vampires; more than once unless the signs lied, and yet he was not only still human but apparently unscathed. The leader hung back just a bit; his Sireling was expendable, there were dozens like him as replacements, stupid twenty-something yuppies spilling out of the endless round of TV networking parties in the small hours, too drunk or high or both to recognise a monster when one was staring them in the face, or leading them towards a quiet corner with a friendly arm around a giddy shoulder.

Too late the leader sensed the disturbance of air _behind_ him and started to turn as his Sireling leaped at the human male. He caught nothing more than an impression of a bad red dye job before something pierced his chest and he was a dust-cloud. Wesley blocked the attack and sent the vampire staggering past him with the force of its own momentum, driving his stake through it's back to the heart, making it dust before it hit the ground, before whirling to face the third vamp -

His arm was numbed as his pirouette was blocked and his back hit the wall of the alley with enough force to wind him. The very sharp stake pressed up against the other side of Wesley's neck to his scarred side.

Justine Cooper's lips curled back into a mirthless, feral toothy grin as she leaned her bodyweight into the arm pinning Wesley Wyndham-Pryce to the dank wall, the point of the stake digging into his throat. She smiled into his eyes. "Slayer, natch. What're the odds?"

**To be continued in Shadowed Souls Part 3**

© 2004 & 2010, C. D. Stewart


End file.
